OliverCromwell was born in a small English country estate called Huntingdon in East Anglia on April twenty-five, 1599.

Cromwell's mother was Elizabeth Steward, whose family had acquired lands confiscated by Henry VIII from the Roman Catholic Church during the sixteenth century.

Cromwell biographer Christopher Hill writes that Cromwell's marriage "brought him closer to the heart of the powerful group which was to lead the Parliamentary opposition" to King Charles I and the Royalists during the English Civil War.

Cromwell and his associates spend most of the summer attempting to block the advance of the earl of Newcastle's northern army in their attempts to march south as part of Charles I's strategy for 1643.

Although Cromwell had not yet achieved his later prominence, he was well known for the quality of his cavalry, served as governor of the Isle of Ely, and was second-in-command to the earl of Manchester.

Cromwell was sent north to deal with it, and was soon on the trail of the 17,000 strong Scottish army, with somewhere between 6,500 and 9,000 troops of his own.

Cromwell's associations of Catholicism and persecution were deepened with the Irish Rebellion of 1641, which were marked by massacres (wildly exaggerated in Puritan circles in Britain) by Irish Catholics of English and Scottish Protestant settlers.

Cromwell, however, commanded the army that had won this victory and as a result was in a position to dictate the future of England.

Cromwell came under pressure from the radicals among his own officers to execute the King, whom they termed, "Charles Stuart, that man of blood." Many hold Cromwell responsible for the execution of Charles I in January 1649, although there were 59 signatories to the death warrant.

Cromwell's Irish campaign (1649–50) used terror to crush Irish resistance to Parliamentary rule; although not especially cruel by the standards of the time, its ferocity left a lasting legacy of hatred for British rule among the Catholic Irish (see Ireland: history 1603 to 1782, Cromwell in Ireland).

Cromwell entered Parliament in 1628, standing firmly with the opposition to Charles I, and was active in the Short and Long Parliaments (1640), although not a conspicuous leader.

Cromwell, now virtual dictator of the Commonwealth, dissolved the Rump Parliament in 1653 after it had failed to effect reforms demanded by the army and had sought to perpetuate its power.

Cromwells foreign policy was governed by the need to expand English trade and prevent the restoration of the Stuarts, and by the desire to build up a Protestant league and enhance the prestige of the Englishrepublic.

Cromwell's alleged paternal ancestor, Jasper Tudor, was a younger brother of Edmund Tudor, 1st Earl of Richmond, uncle to his son Henry VII of England, and son of Owen Tudor and Catherine of Valois, daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria.

OliverCromwell coined the phrase "warts and all." Though he did not actually say "warts and all," the phrase comes from a famous conversation that he made to the artist (Lely) that was painting his portrait after he became Lord Protector.

www.bookrags.com /wiki/Oliver_Cromwell (4825 words)

Oliver Cromwell at opensource encyclopedia(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-07)

In the wake of victory, the monarchy was abolished, and between 1649 and 1653 the country became a republic, long rare in Europe.

This should have been the end of the story but in 1661OliverCromwell's body was exhumed from Westminster Abbey and was subjected to the ritual of a posthumous execution - on January 30, the same date that Charles I had been executed.

Oliver was the second child of the family, in which were composed of two other sons and seven sisters.

But the death of Oliver's two brothers in their infancy and the death of his father when Oliver was 18 years old, put the responsibilities of support and the management of their small holdings on Oliver's shoulders.

Oliver himself speaks of the fact that from the date of his conversion, his reading was almost exclusively limited to the Bible, and he was known till his death as a man who had a rare knowledge of Scripture far exceeding that of most of England's ministers.

However, we should note that Oliver St John vigorously denied any involvement in the establishment of the Protectorate and later claimed that he was dangerously ill throughout the whole period from October 1653 until May 1654.

OliverCromwell was named in the constitution as the first Lord Protector.

In practice, Cromwell and his Council made extensive use of their temporary financial and legislative powers during 1654, renewing and imposing taxes and passing over 180 ordinances covering public, private and local issues.

Cromwell was not "wedded and glued to forms of government" and he believed that all such forms were "dross and dung in comparison of Christ".

Cromwell and most of the army saw this as an act of sacrilege, an attempt to overturn the judgement of God in the first war and they determined to punish those responsible for the shedding of innocent blood.

Cromwell was a regular visitor to Cambridge in the war years (the committee of the Eastern Association had its headquarters in the Bear inn, next to Sidney Sussex College) but he played little personal part in either of these purges.

Cromwell's university career was cut short when his father died in June 1617 and he returned home to manage his family estate and to look after his widowed mother and seven unmarried sisters.

Cromwell's improved social status and his connections with local Puritans led to his nomination as a freeman of the borough of Cambridge and election as MP for Cambridge in the two Parliaments of 1640.

Cromwell pursued from the north and decisively defeated the Scots and Royalists at the battle of Worcester on 3 September 1651, the anniversary of Dunbar and the last major battle of the civil wars.

In 1642, Cromwell was 43 years old, and it was during this time that his talents and military abilities came to the fore.

Cromwell debated about what to do with the King, but he was finally instrumental in signing the paper which declared Charles a traitor and led to his execution outside the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall on January 30th, 1649.

OliverCromwell was born into a common family of English country Puritans having none of the advantages of upbringing that would prepare him to be leader of a nation.

Cromwell's tactic was to strike with the cavalry through the advancing army at the center, go straight through the lines and then circle to either the left or the right milling the mass into a mob, creating confusion and utterly destroying them.

Cromwell found that a democratic parliamentary system run by squires and lords oppressed the common people and was almost as corrupt as the rulership of the deposed evil king.

Though totally lacking in previous military experience, he created and led a superb force of cavalry, the Ironsides, and rose from the rank of captain to that of lieutenant-general in three years, displaying, at the same time, a paradoxical mixture of religious sincerity and astute political opportunism.

The Commonwealth proper, however, ended with the establishment of Cromwell'sProtectorate (1653-58), which was characterized by religious toleration, profitable commercial treaties with several foreign powers, and several sucesful wars.